INTA Blog

​On January 25, 2017, the Department of Homeland Security released its Intellectual Property Rights Seizure Statistics report for fiscal year (FY) 2016. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) enforce intellectual property rights (IPRs) to mitigate the financial and welfare risks posed by imports of illicit products.

In FY 2016, the number of IPR seizures increased by 9 percent from 28,865 to 31,560. The total estimated MSRP of the seized goods, had they been genuine was $1,382,903,001. The seizure report also highlights the continuation of the voluntary abandonment pilot program, which is a partnership between CBP and the Express Association of America. The pilot program was supported through formal recommendation by the Commercial Customs Operational Advisory Committee (COAC) and resulted in 3,763 voluntary abandonments of detained goods and over $3 million in estimated interdiction cost savings to the government.

Other highlights of the report include:

The combined total number of all IPR border enforcement actions in FY 2016 increased 11 percent over FY 2015;

In FY 2016, the largest category of seizures was in the apparel/accessories industry, which comprised 20 percent of the total amount of seizures, followed by consumer electronics, with 16 percent of total seizures;

The top two sources of counterfeit goods were China, with 52 percent, and Hong Kong, with 36 percent;